A Mommy Moment

After work last night, I drove out to my youngest daughter's year-end awards ceremony, known as "The Golden Bear Awards". (That's her in the black and red dress.) This annual event is held by her high school to honor top students in a variety of curricular areas. Her older siblings had both won in previous years; I never thought she would win. School has always been a challenge for her. I am so very proud of her! She has come such a long way.

Post-Thanksgiving Recap

Ok, I admit it - I ate too much yesterday. Dinner was at 3pm and it is now 8am the next day and I still feel like I just ate! I didn't think the amount of food I put on my plate was unreasonable - but maybe I'd eaten too many carrot sticks. My sister-in-law, Stacy, brought her now-traditional pumpkin soup for the first course. Then I had my Tofurky with stuffing, mashed potatoes with Tofurky gravy, the sweet potatoes my wonderful wife made, cranberry jello, and a couple of the Tofurky-supplied dumplings. (Ugh. I could not get those dumplings to cook right - I ate a few bites and tossed out the rest.) I couldn't even finish what was on my plate. Around 6pm I finally gave in a took a very small sliver of Stacy's pumpkin pie - a big mistake - I had to go outside and take a walk to try to get my overstuffed stomach moving.

It was a pretty quiet day, though. Just me and Mary, my mom and dad, my brother Tim, his wife Stacy and their two boys. My brother Andy slept through the entire thing, and my brother Mark is stuck down in south Texas. We did talk to Mark on the phone, briefly. We did a lot of reminiscing about camping trips when we were growing up, about older family members, and Thanksgivings gone by. When we got home, I called the kids at their dad's house and Mary and I talked to each of them for a few minutes.

I'm working tonight from 6pm to midnight. That'll be interesting, since I'm usually in bed asleep around 10pm. It was the only shift left available for today, and I just couldn't pass up the holiday pay. Hopefully it will be quiet.

Shellynne is coming over tomorrow so we can spend some time with her before she goes back up to school for the rest of the semester. Yeah!

Sleep wanted

Yesterday was my little brother's birthday.... Happy Birthday, Andy!

As for my week.....

Just as I was pretty much rehydrated from last week's day of hell, this week started. I worked on Labor Day (how can you turn down time-and-a-half?), which wasn't too bad, but then I picked up extra hours for Wednesday. I ended up at work from 8am-10pm on Wednesday, with several hours in between my split shift, but not enough to go home and back. It was long enough to run into Target for a few things, and then check out The Great Indoors. Yikes! A $5000 oven?????? I just wanted a pot rack...! Grabbed some Starbucks, of course. Stopped by Subway to pick up a sandwich for later, and headed back to the office, where I sat outside in the shaded courtyard for a couple of hours before heading back in to work.

Needless to say, the next day was a looooong one. I haven't been sleeping well to begin with, and going to bed so late on Wednesday night didn't help. Luckily, today is a shorter day for me - I don't have a job until 10am and it's a short one, so I should be back home for lunch. Yeah!

Can you hear me singing?

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, my love,
Happy birthday to you!

I am so fortunate to be able to spend this day with you. We'll sit in the pool, have some bbq, and visit with friends. I hope your day is all you want it to be.

MWAH!

Catching up

Yeah, I know, I haven't posted in a while. This heat and humidity is just sapping everything out of me. At least the A/C works good! Too bad it doesn't reach the bedroom...it's been very difficult to sleep the last few nights.

Last Friday we went and saw Melissa Etheridge at the Long Beach Terrace Theater. What a show! This is the third time I've seen her in concert, but the first time I've seen her in Long Beach where her career began. She had a blast, the fans had a blast. She played a lot of her old stuff, and new stuff too. There was one whole segment that did me in though - she started with "Legacy", which I've always thought is the most powerful message she has ever written - and continued into "Scarecrow". As soon as I heard the opening chords to that one, I started to cry. I always cry when I hear that one, remembering the hours waiting to see if Matthew Sheperd would survive or not, and the disbelieving, bitter tears when he did not. My friend Keith (a UU minister) was at Matthew's funeral. As if that wasn't enough, Melissa went right into "Flight 93", a song in honor of a gay man who helped prevent the terrorists from reaching their target, and the US government who does everything in their power to avoid admitting that gays can do anything heroic or positive. For more on the concert, and a great review: click here.

Saturday afternoon, I presided over a gay couple's commitment ceremony. Sort of last minute, but fun none the less. A very nice couple, seemingly mismatched on first thought, but then you realize how much they ground and center each other. This Saturday I'll be meeting with another couple to start planning their ceremony for this winter. I love presiding over weddings and handfastings. I like the ones that take place in someone's backyard even better than the ones that take place on a harbor cruise or in a posh country club. There's something much more "real" about them.

Sunday, my parents and brother came over. Andy (my bro) built us a new computer, the one I'm using right now. Our old computer was running on Windows 98 (eek!), and running much more slowly than it should have been. Eventually, once we transfer the files to the new computer, we'll bleach the old hard drive and reinstall everything, then let the kids use that one. This new computer is lightning fast! We've got a DVD burner, 1 gig RAM, 80 gig hard drive and Windows XP with Office 2003. We're finally making use of the high-speed internet service we've had for a year - the old computer just couldn't reach the speeds that the modem was channeling. Thanks, Andy!!!!

The 4th of July was alright. We took the girls over to Jo's for BBQ and a movie. Fireworks are illegal in Long Beach, and after going one year to the City's fireworks show, I swore I would never deal with those drunken crowds again - wall to wall sots. The kids are old enough now that they weren't disappointed. Did I mention fireworks are illegal in Long Beach? Then can you explain the load noises I hear all night, and every night for the past week? Firecrackers in trash cans, mostly, and a few Whistling Petes. Every time I just dropped off on Tuesday night, another trashcan would "BANG!!!!" and I was awake again. Not a very restful night.

And now we're back in the grind. Work, drive, eat, sleep. Sigh.

Mark's Graduation

Mark graduated from Warren High School last night. It was hard to pick him out from where we were sitting on the bleachers. And of course there was a beach ball that made its rounds during the long list of names. At the closing, the traditional throwing of the caps was observed. The Fire Dept. was on hand to set off fireworks at the end of the ceremony - a great touch.

Congratulations, Mark! I'm very proud of you.

Anniversary

My beloved and I celebrated our 2nd Anniversary on Monday. The time we have been together is a wonderful gift, and she is so amazing! I am so fortunate to have found her. Happy Anniversary My Love!

June - Round Two

Faire last Saturday went well. The weather was great, and Elfkat hung out with us most of the day. We had lots of Reiki clients, which always makes the day worthwhile. Then Monday night, we had our monthly Reiki circle. After lugging boxes and the massage table and canopy etc up and down the stairs, we were definitely ready for OUR turn to get Reiki!

Then, Friday, we went to Lowe's....after 10 years of living in this apartment, we broke down in our middle age and bought a window air conditioner and all the fixings to install it (non-permanently, of course -- rental unit). By the time we got home with it, the "high of 78" had already become 95 degrees. The next 9 hours could have been an episode of "DIY Comedy", but the A/C is in the window, and it works beautifully! The job isn't completely done, but the rest is basically the sealing work. You should have heard us moving around yesterday -- all the moans and groans from sore backs and arms. It isn't easy to carry a 65 pound box up a flight of stairs!

Today, June 18, is my son Mark's 18th birthday. Hard to believe. There were times I never thought he'd grow up, and now he's an amazing young man with a big heart and his life's path before him. Happy Birthday, Mark! I love you.

Down to the wire

Only two days to go until the Solstice Faire, and we still have so much to do! Today we'll be running around doing some last minute shopping for the booth setup, and then back home to finish up some of our product labeling and pricing. We would have had a lot more done by now, but it was just too bloody hot last week to do anything but melt into the couch. Thank Goddess the June Gloom is here and keeping the days a little cooler!

I'm not working today, because I knew we would still have a ton o'stuff to do. I'm not really working tomorrow either, but I do have a workshop to attend in the morning. That sounds funny, doesn't it? Cuz I really AM working -- getting ready for Faire -- but that "doesn't count" cuz it's not my "Day Job". LOL

June is a busy month for us. Faire is one thing, but there is also Father's Day, my son's 18th birthday (OMG! already?), said son's high school graduation (2 down, 1 to go), my birthday (!!!!), and our 2nd Anniversary. Think they could squeeze anything else in there?

Family Portrait

Nicole wanted to know why her picture wasn't in my blog, so here is the whole family, taken a year and a half ago. Yes, Mark is taller now! As soon as we can convince the camera to talk to the computer again, I'll be able to post more recent pics.

L to R: Nicole, Shellynne, Mary, me, Mark

New Year's Already

Happy Hogmanay!

I can't believe it's 2006 already. Where does it go?

All three of my kids have been here for the past week, which is nice. I had to work half the time, but we did manage to finally get out and see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! And we got in a bit of post-holiday shopping with gift cards received at said holiday.

We decided to have an Open House for New Year's Eve. Several friends came by for food and beverages and chatting, and a few others cancelled because of the heavy rain that was causing local streets to overflow their banks. Everyone who came by lit a candle with their intentions for the coming year. The altar was blazing brightly around Isis by the end of the evening.

We had a good time, and we managed to stay up until midnight so we could toast the new year. Goddess only knows how late the kids stayed up -- WE went to bed around 1:00 am. It's nearly 11:00 am now and they're still snoozing.

It's back to work tomorrow morning for me. Three solid days of work, and they we fly up to Seattle on Thursday morning for a long weekend. I can't wait!

Christmas Eve

Ok, so yesterday turned out not to be so bad after all. Traffic was pretty light, for a change, which did help my mood.

Got to see my brother Mark who drove in from Texas for the holidays. It's only about 1800 miles from here to there (one way). Also finally got to see my cousin's baby who is just 5 months old. So the baby and my 20-year-old are second cousins. Not so weird since my cousin wasn't born until I was 16.

The family tradition is to eat in the late afternoon and open gifts after it gets dark, but because my aunt and uncle and cousins had to leave early to get to another engagement, we ate around 2-3pm and then opened presents. We were done with all of that around 5pm, which left my two nephews plenty of time to start playing with their toys while the adults had dessert and chatted and played with the baby.

We left my folks' house at about 7:30, got home an hour later, and let the kids open their presents from us. My wife and I decided to open our gifts later today (after the kids are back at their dad's) but we did exchange one gift last night. She has been dying for a Furby - she used to have one, which was lost when she lost her storage unit. I tried to find one last year (no luck) and for her birthday (no luck again) so I had grabbed this one up a few weeks ago and hidden it in the back of the car until I could get it upstairs to wrap it. The delighted look on her face was worth every bit of searching!

We were actually in bed before midnight. When's the last time that happened on Christmas Eve? No bikes to put together or Santa gifts to set out under the tree.